Mets’ Dillon Gee Unhappy With Move Back to the Bullpen

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Dillon Gee last week. “I’m almost at the point now where I just don’t even care anymore,” Gee said of a move back to the bullpen.CreditLenny Ignelzi/Associated Press

By Tim Rohan

June 7, 2015

PHOENIX — When Dillon Gee arrived at Chase Field on Saturday, Mets Manager Terry Collins summoned him to his office to apologize. Gee was not entirely sure why. The apology could have been for the frequent trade rumors, or the shifting of Gee between the bullpen and the rotation, or the general sense from the Mets that he was unwanted.

This time, Collins was apologizing because he was moving Gee back to the bullpen. Collins had decided to use a six-man rotation as a way to curb the younger pitchers’ innings, but now he was abandoning the strategy after less than a week. Gee, instead of reacting with anger or confusion or frustration, mostly just felt numb.

“I’m almost at the point now where I just don’t even care anymore,” Gee said. “I mean, I’m kind of just over it all. I’ll do the best I can out of the pen now.”

Gee had plenty of time to sort out his emotions in the bullpen as he watched the Mets lose to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 2-1.

This latest slight could have been avoided, perhaps, if the Mets had been more deliberate in their planning. Collins said he had decided to scrap the six-man rotation when he met with the pitching coach Dan Warthen, saw that the Mets had four days off in the next five weeks, and realized that the schedule would cause some starters to have too much rest. The comment indicated that Collins had not thought that far ahead when he announced the rotation.

During his meeting with Collins, Gee expressed concern that moving around so often had affected his performance. He also felt that being in the bullpen destroyed his value — both to the team and as a possible trade chip.

“I kind of felt like any value, if I had any at all before this, it’s probably gone,” Gee said during an interview with reporters.

When the Mets switched to the six-man rotation, none of the starters seemed too pleased. It disrupted routines and was meant to benefit only three of the pitchers, the ones with inning limits: Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.

None of starters spoke out strongly in favor of or against it. But they seemed hesitant to discuss it in interviews, and the extra days off became an easy excuse when they pitched poorly. Harvey, in particular, seemed not as sharp at times.

Still, a league source said that neither Harvey nor his agent, Scott Boras, had approached the Mets’ upper management with concerns about the six-man rotation.

In a phone interview Saturday, Boras indicated that the Mets were generally keeping him informed. Over the winter and during spring training, Boras spoke at length with General Manager Sandy Alderson about the Mets’ plan for handling Harvey, who was coming off Tommy John surgery. According to Boras, most doctors recommend that a pitcher throw only 160 to 170 innings in his first year back from the operation.

“How the team does that,” Boras said, “we leave that to them.”

Harvey has thrown 732/3 innings in 11 starts. If he continues at that pace and the Mets adhere to Boras’s numbers, Harvey will make only about 15 more starts. But the Mets have also indicated that Harvey could throw closer to 200 innings.

Either way, Collins said his goal was to not shut down any pitchers this season. But that will require some maneuvering as the season goes on, maybe capping the number of innings per start or even skipping a start.

“We all just said, basically, ‘Look, we’ll worry about August when August comes,’ ” Collins said. “If we have to back somebody up or skip them sometime, we can do that.”

Gee could also be used as a spot starter to give everyone an extra day of rest here and there. Until then, Gee plans on quizzing his fellow relievers on his new role. He has to learn a new routine: when to lift weights, when to throw, how to warm up.

During spring training, Gee was starting to adapt to his role in the bullpen, but then Zack Wheeler was injured. That began Gee’s path from the rotation to the disabled list to ultimately being supplanted by a prospect, Syndergaard. All the while, Gee remained respectful of the Mets, and when Collins moved him again, he simply nodded like the “trouper, the good soldier that he is,” Collins said.

Later, Gee was asked if he would have preferred being traded. “I mean, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a G.M., so I don’t know. I mean — I don’t know. I’m done trying to figure out this whole situation.”

INSIDE PITCH

DILLON GEE was available to pitch Saturday night, but TERRY COLLINS decided against using him. BARTOLO COLON lasted seven innings and pitched brilliantly for six of them, holding the Diamondbacks scoreless. But in the seventh, Colon let a slow fastball drift over the plate, and WELINGTON CASTILLO crushed it for a two-run homer. The Mets’ offense did Colon no favors, scoring one run and stranding eight runners.